4 Questions Obama’s Big National Security Speech Should Answer

President Obama speaks at the Vietnam memorial in Washington, D.C., May 2012. Photo: White House

President Obama will deliver what aides say is a major national security speech tomorrow. It’s unlikely to redefine the war on terrorism, but it might clarify some of the lingering ambiguities about that seemingly endless conflict.

Obama will repeat his call for closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and will discuss the future of U.S. drone strikes. Beyond that, administration officials are describing a kind of status report about the war on terrorism. “He will review the state of the threats we face, particularly as al-Qaida core has weakened but new dangers have emerged,” says a White House official. “He will frame the future of our efforts against al-Qaida, its affiliates and adherents.”

That would be welcome. Because right now, in no small part because of decisions Obama has taken, very little about the conflict or its future course is clear. Here’s a guide to four of the most important unresolved questions about a war that no one seems to know how to resolve.

An MQ-9 Reaper drone at Nellis Air Force Base, November 2012. Photo: cclark395/Flickr

Who Can the Drones Hit?

Sure, Obama’s going to talk about the drones — and, if Reuters is correct, he’ll give the military control of the CIA’s drone war in Yemen. But the drones are nothing more than a tool for targeting groups the U.S. says are in some way part of al-Qaida. And there’s not much rigorous understanding of what that even means.

In speech after speech, administration officials cite their authority, ostensibly granted by Congress, to target “associated forces” of al-Qaida worldwide. It’s a way to ensure the drones hover, monitor and eventually strike al-Qaida’s permutations nearly as quickly as they pop up. Only a few problems: that term never appears in the foundational piece of legislation authorizing the war on terrorism, known as the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force or AUMF. And in any event, it’s an ambiguous term.

That ambiguity was on display during a Senate hearing last week, when the Pentagon attempted to define it. An “associated force” is a group — pointedly not an individual, the Defense Department maintained — that is “co-belligerent” with al-Qaida “in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” (.PDF) If a group meets those criteria, there’s a drone heading its way, toting a Hellfire missile.

But the Pentagon’s definition prompts as many questions as it answers. What about a group that declares loyalty to al-Qaida but isn’t co-belligerent against the U.S. or its partners? That’s not a hypothetical. It describes al-Shebab, the Somali group that joined al-Qaida last year but hasn’t attacked the United States. (You could maybe argue Kenya, a country Shebab has attacked, is a coalition partner.) Yet the drones have already struck in Somalia. The definition also rules out Syria’s Nusra Front, a more recent al-Qaida acquisition that also hasn’t attacked America. But at the hearing, Pentagon officials said they had all the authority they need to attack Nusra, thanks to the AUMF.

More ambiguously: what about north African jihadist groups that have attacked the United States or its citizens in places like Benghazi or Algeria but aren’t “co-belligerent” with al-Qaida? You could reasonably wonder why self-radicalized individuals who claim sympathy with al-Qaida or declare themselves to share its agenda don’t fall under the definition. It also came out at last week’s hearing that the Senate Armed Services Committee does not even have a list of “associated forces” that the administration feels it has the right to target.

None of this is to argue that these groups or people should fall under the definition. The broader the definition gets, the more the war sprawls — and the more distant victory becomes. But it is to observe that after 12 years, the government lacks a rigorous understanding of who, exactly, is its enemy. You cannot win a war that way. You can only send the drones to more and more places, killing more and more people.

Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, site of the world’s most infamous detention facility. Photo: U.S. Army

Close Guantanamo or End Indefinite Detention?

Yes, yes, Obama wants to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. He argues it doesn’t make America safer; it stains America’s reputation. But he has yet to articulate a desire to end the reason why it stains America’s reputation: the perpetuation of indefinite detention without trial.

Obama’s 2009 speech on the intersection of law and national security attempted to split the difference. He claimed that dozens of Gitmo detainees were both too dangerous to release and, for a variety of reasons, couldn’t be charged with any war crime. All his aspirations to date for closing Guantanamo involve moving such detainees to U.S. prisons where their detention would continue.

Lawyers argue that calling this indefinite detention is inappropriate. The detention will last, they say, until the war on terrorism ends, much like how prisoners of war are detained without charge until hostilities cease. They’re right, but it’s an academic distinction: the administration cannot conceive of what an end to hostilities looks like. Administration lawyers are even launching a trial balloon to say they have power to detain individuals even after hostilities with al-Qaida end.

As commander-in-chief, Obama has the power to empty Guantanamo Bay right now. Congress can and has stopped him from bringing Gitmo detainees into the continental United States (ironically, for a prolonged detention). What stops Obama from opening Gitmo’s doors is the fear that some detainees will proceed to take up arms against the U.S.; and the political backlash that might follow an end to indefinite detention. Until Obama is willing to face either objection squarely, Guantanamo won’t close. It’ll only move.

When Should Muslims Snitch on Their Neighbors?

You’re unlikely to hear anyone in the administration frame this question this way. But it lurks behind the controversy over the alleged “intelligence failure” surrounding the Boston bombing suspects — as well as any future “homegrown” terrorists.

As is well known now, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 after receiving a tip from Russian intelligence that he was dangerous. It found nothing to justify further surveillance on him. The CIA, worried about the Russia tip, nevertheless put his name in a government database. Without actual criminal suspicion, the Department of Homeland Security could not stop him from subsequently leaving and reentering the U.S.; and no law-enforcement could detain him. Then, months later, Boston.

In the understandable frustration about the bombing, legislators and reporters have tried to pinpoint moments before the attack when the Tsarnaev brothers might have been surveilled or detained. The most high-profile of them: two times that Tamerlan Tsarnaev “disrupted services” at a Cambridge mosque. “Why didn’t [the FBI] involve the local law enforcers who could have stayed on the case and picked up signals from some of the students who interacted with them, from the people in the mosque,” asked former Senator Joe Lieberman during an April congressional hearing.

The unstated presumption behind Lieberman’s question is that the FBI and local police ought to expect religious figures and co-worshippers to consider someone who’s a jerk during services to be a potential terrorist. Muslim communities across America are already under a broad surveillance dragnet. Many resent surveillance in their places of worship. It’s a wicked problem: not only are the civil rights of Muslim Americans jeopardized, but the cops expected to prevent the next attack have to risk their relationships with the very communities they rely upon for information to do their jobs.

The past twelve years have placed American Muslims in a crucible. No matter how many times administration officials give speeches saying they’re part of the solution, the surveillance they’re under sends the message that they’re part of the problem. If the U.S. government really expects American Muslims to call the cops every time someone they know utters an extreme statement — an extraordinary and dubiously constitutional expectation — the government owes it to them to state it forthrightly. Whether Obama accepts or rejects that expectation, he ought to make his views explicit.

What Emergency Powers Can Be Rolled Back?

The AUMF doesn’t just authorize war. It’s a wellspring of extraordinary surveillance and detention powers as well. (For an excellent primer on that, read this Eli Lake article.) Some of those powers have been codified in other laws, like the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; or supplemented by other laws, like the Patriot Act. The idea behind all of these laws is that they authorize emergency powers. When the emergency dissipates, so does the justification for the laws.

To date, the Obama administration hasn’t talked about rolling back any of the emergency powers it enjoys. Those powers, and the rebalance of liberty and security they represent, have already outlived Osama bin Laden. The basic inertial forces of American politics position them to outlive al-Qaida. Just two years ago, cabinet officials talked about being ten or 20 kills away from strategically defeating al-Qaida. Now senior Pentagon aides talk about a war that will last ten to 20 years.